Decide, Pray, Act | Benefit Now and in the Future | Daimoku and Human Revolution | Oubaitori.com

Saturday, September 12, 2026. Live #157, broadcast from the Oubaitori showroom in Koga, Ibaraki — the first stream in a week. After apologizing for starting a little late, Yukihiro Shima spoke on a single point: decide, pray, and move.

My 45th year in this one trade

I have entered my 45th year in the Soka Gakkai Buddhist altar trade. It is a sobering thought. I began at 25 and have stayed with this one line of work — I tried a little food service before it, and a little insurance work along the way, but this has been the road. I am 69 now, and in four months I will turn 70.

Faith brings benefit now and in the future — the past is an asset

Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, how do we get ourselves out of the situation we are in right now? How do we break through and win as we head into the future? Rather than something I want to do five or ten years from now, there are many things I want to do today.

Faith brings benefit in this life and the next. The past matters too. But we are not here to be dragged along by it. The past is a great asset — all of that experience. The question is how you use it to create value in the present and the future.

Yesterday’s dialogue — “What if you had never joined?”

Yesterday I was able to sit down with a member of the men’s division. Back in May we had said we should make time to meet again, and yesterday it finally happened.

He is a sincere, straightforward person. He came up through the young men’s division, so we have known each other for about 35 years.

Work. Family. His organization and the propagation of Buddhism in his area. Three large areas, and I listened to each one. Then, because he is someone who joined after being introduced to this practice, I asked him plainly:

“Honestly — what if you had never joined the Gakkai?”

What came back was this: “It is precisely because I joined that I have been able to take on these challenges and fight through my own struggles.”

And if he had not joined: “First of all, I would not be here. I do not know whether I would even have a job. I would not have my family. I would have no organization. My life would be completely different — and I think I would probably have become a rather sorry version of myself.” He said it as something he had come to see for himself, and I was able to hear him say it.

Once a person can say “I am glad I joined,” a chapter can be closed. So then: what is the challenge in front of you now? And when we say the future, what about this year, or next year? We talked it through, and it was a very good exchange.

At the end I handed him the sheet on the prayer for changing one’s life, and we spoke about our mentor, the Gohonzon, the practice of chanting, and prayer. Then we shook hands and finished.

“Thank you for today. And from tomorrow, let’s keep going.”

Is it a struggle, or is it hesitation?

If you stand still, nothing happens. It is because you try to move forward that something arises. And at that moment, whether what arises is a struggle or mere hesitation splits the road in two.

If you have this faith, do you receive it with faith, or do you receive it with emotion? That, too, changes everything.

Faith means a believing heart. First you have to believe in yourself. When you have said “I will take responsibility for this,” you believe that you can carry it out exactly as you said.

And because someone trusted you enough to entrust it to you, you carry it out.

Then comes the moment when you think, “I cannot do any more than this.”

That is not a failure. It means you have climbed one step. So the question becomes: what do you need in order to take the next step up from there?

The new three evil paths — don’t decide, don’t pray, don’t move

Decide, pray, move. This is ordinary. And yet there is a new set of three evil paths that has become just as ordinary: don’t decide, don’t pray, don’t act. Too much trouble. Too annoying.

Once you sink into greed, anger and foolishness — those three tendencies of life — it becomes “I am not the problem,” “I have done nothing wrong,” “the people around me are the problem,” “nobody does anything for me.” A human being can lower their own existence that far.

The one you fight is your own life

When the Daishonin speaks of a battle, he does not mean fighting other people. He does not mean clashing over opinions. It is your own life, and you yourself, in that struggle.

The Daishonin inscribed the Gohonzon by pouring his very soul into the sumi ink. Believe in the Gohonzon. Believe in your own life. It is from the place where we cannot believe, from doubt, that every kind of unhappiness begins.

If you keep chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, you naturally reach the world of Buddhahood.

And on top of that, the faith of the Soka Gakkai becomes daimoku of a vow — for worldwide propagation of Buddhism, for world peace. There are many ways of thinking, many peoples, many countries. But being human is the same for all of us.

Ordinarily we live in the worlds of humanity and of the bodhisattva, and from time to time we reach Buddhahood. Having entered the world of faith, if we end in the three evil paths, in the cycle of the six paths, then what was the faith for?

Everything is connected

On my way here today, trucks were running and buses were running. Without these people the world does not turn — I thought that for the first time while driving. How grateful I am.

Even what looks unrelated to you is connected. Everything in the world is connected, and it turns because it is all being kept in order.

If a torrential rain band floods the place and the goods are soaked, the goods are ruined. The flooded space has to be restored. Carpenters and other people are needed. And only then can the goods come back in.

A small slip in timing pulls in one unnecessary thing after another.

Floors under water, cars swept away. Climate alone is doing this much damage, and still there are places starting wars. If that much is going to be spent on the military, I would rather it were spent on building a world where we can live in happiness.

In Buddhism this is taught as relationship, as connection. There are good connections and bad ones. And what matters most of all is that your life exists here, now. Without that, nothing exists at all. This earth, I believe, shares one destiny.

Propagation begins with yourself

We say the second half of the year is for propagation. But first you do it with yourself, and then with the person in front of you.

This is the Reiwa era. These days you hear that the moment you assert your own opinion, it lands in some category like harassment.

The people right in the middle of that are on edge, and speaking at all starts to feel frightening. And then on social media, where no face and no personal details are visible, you get people posting the most terrible things with their emotions laid bare.

It is not like the old days of announcing, “I have joined the Gakkai.”

It is the spirit of standing alone, with faith as the foundation. Not “nobody else is standing up, so neither will I.” You stand for the sake of your own life.

A calm heart, filled with hope, holding pride in yourself. Pride as a member, pride as a Japanese, pride as a citizen of this planet. For the happiness of yourself and others, today too, fighting with yourself, revolutionizing your state of life by a millimeter, by a centimeter, becoming someone who can contribute to worldwide propagation of Buddhism. If each person awakened to that, what a world it would be. That figure, just as it is, is propagation.

“That’s far enough” — or is that where you begin?

I was never good at chanting. Now my day cannot start unless I chant. Put another way, in a sense I may have become dependent on daimoku.

Decide, pray, move.

Turn the wish of “this is how I want it to be” into the prayer of a vow, and chant as a prayer to change your life. Simply chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo already leads to Buddhahood — and on top of that, we change our life and carry out our human revolution. When you chant with your whole heart, wanting to purify your own life, you find you want to act.

“I’m too old now.” “I’m tired.”

Of course you get tired — I am old. You get tired even when you are not. Do this much and both heart and body get tired. In competition, the referee calls out, “That’s far enough.” The moment you give up, that is as far as it goes. But if you can say, “I gave it everything,” then rest there for a while. And when you stand up once more, that is where faith begins.

Then you start building, day to day, the conditions in which that does not happen. Happiness you hold for a lifetime and never lose, obstacles overcome, health and long life, faith for absolute victory. That is the direction it takes, isn’t it?

The prayer for changing your life

This is the prayer for changing one’s life that I received from President Ikeda.

I want to pray for your health and your long life. I want to pray for your every success and victory. I am sending you daimoku. … Into my own life, may the protection of Bonten and Taishaku enter. Into the lives of every member, and of all my fellow members in my own area, may Bonten and Taishaku enter. Pray like this, and a thousand, ten thousand times the strength comes forth. This is the prayer that changes one’s life. This is faith. This is the secret of human revolution. Thank you for today.

This is the guidance President Ikeda gave to us, his disciples.

On the day of Tatsunokuchi

Today is September 12 — the day the Daishonin faced the execution ground at Tatsunokuchi.

Day after day, with the resolve to cast off the transient and reveal the true. Toward worldwide propagation of Buddhism. In a world like this one, isn’t each person’s own awakening exactly what is most needed? That is what I believe.

I want to set off a whirlwind of daimoku across the whole world. And the drama of how I myself carry out my human revolution inside that whirlwind — right now, I am enjoying it more than anything.

Let’s Daimoku! Thank you, and have a wonderful week.